As somebody who regularly attends CMCs in Scotland, I agree with most of what you say, Billy. I think you can roughly divide attendees into these categories:

Listeners/social dancers who don't particularly like country music but want a "safe" night outListeners who like country music but prefer songs they know - usually oldies (the songs and the people...)Listeners who like country music but prefer original songs - not many of those attend CMCs.Line dancers/partner dancers who like most country music and like to dance. Line dancers who are happy to dance to anything with a beat but prefer songs they know.People who follow country music and prefer live acts - again, not many of those attend CMCs.

There are probably people who don't fall into any of those categories, or people who fall into more than one (like me), but I think that covers most of UK CMC attendees.

The bottom line is that CMCs in the UK are primarily dance clubs. That's what a lot of people want to do, so if acts play original songs that are difficult to dance to, then a lot of the audience understandably get bored and will no doubt tell the organiser not to book them again - most organisers obviously want to please their punters. As for booking lots of solos and duos, there are not enough 4/5 piece country bands around to fill all the clubs every week and anyway clubs really cannot afford them every week.